The Werewolf Handbook (or How Not To Maul Your Grandma)
by I Am The Eleventh
Summary: Are you a freshly turned Werewolf searching desperately for guidance? If so, then this book is for you! Featuring hilarious and witty commentary by yours truly, this handbook will tell you literally everything you need to know, from staying in control to step by step instructions on how to use your brand new werewolf oven! - Stiles Stilinski, Your New Favorite Author
1. Introduction

Introduction: _So You've Been Bitten By...Something_

Let's cut to the chase shall we? You and I both know you've been bitten by a werewolf. All one of us has to do now is accept that fact.

Yes, that means you. You, reading this book right now, full of anxiety because the other night _something_ bit you. Something large. And hairy. Probably with red eyes. Probably in the woods. Probably in the dead of night.

Oh yeah, I can hear you trying to come up with a hundred different reasons why I'm wrong. It was just an animal. Werewolves aren't real. (Ha, werewolves aren't real…)

Here's the evidence that werewolves are real, mi amigo:

a) My best friend is one

b) You are one

c) I'm always right

What, you want more than that? Well, riddle-me-this, if you know so much:

Why do you feel different?

Why can you hear your parents murmuring in the next room over?

Why can you read this even without the light?

Why can you smell your sister's perfume in the bathroom down the hall?

Why are you suddenly faster than the whole damn track team?

Why can you lift anything, from your nasty old gym teacher to your bed, without breaking a sweat?

And why is every trace of that bite miraculously gone?

Face it bud, you're a werewolf. Say it with me. Werewolf. Lycanthrope. Hombre-lobo. Loup-garou.

Okay okay okay! Take some deep breaths! In _out_. In _out_. It's NOT the end of the world. Or of your social life. Well, it is, kind of. But also it's really not. You can do this.

Step one is pretty simple: Don't panic.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One: _Step One: Don't Panic (Or At Least Make A Concerted Effort Not To Have A Breakdown)_

Breakdowns are not helpful. If you're having a breakdown, stop it right now. NOW. BREATHE.

Better?

Okay, moving on.

You've accepted the fact that you're now a supernatural being called a werewolf. Now comes learning to deal with it.

You are now a very strong, very fast, very violent beast with the power to rip people and random objects into itsy bitsy pieces. Unfortunately, this also means you now have about as much self-control as a high school freshman.

(If you are a freshman, this means you have even less control than before. Sorry.)

So, the first thing you need to know is how you keep your control--and what's liable to make you lose it.

I present to you Stiles Stilinski's Comprehensive List of Things That WIll Make You Lose Your Cool:

\- Getting angry

\- Being upset

\- Stress

\- Danger/ threats to the well-being of your various body parts

\- Anything...exciting (i.e sports, seeing your crush, etc.)

\- Basically, anything that raises your heart rate

Obviously you can't cut all feelings out. You can't lock yourself in a werewolf-proof room for the rest of your life. So what's a baby-wolf to do?

You monitor your heart rate, that's what you do. The rise in heart rate is directly tied to the transformation. If you can control your heart rate you can control your uncontrollableness.

So get yourself a Fitbit or something to keep an eye on it, take deep breaths, and figure out what makes you calm. Play with a Rubix cube, take up knitting, find your happy place, make a playlist of chill music. No matter how silly you think it is. Just try it. You might be surprised.

Of course, keeping your heart rate down is only the physical side of staying in control. The other side is entirely mental.

Just like control, there are two sides to you now. You, the human, and you, the wolf. Those sides of you will constantly be fighting for dominance. If you want to stay human, you have to make a deep connection to your human self. You have to anchor yourself to it. So, think. What makes you feel human? Desperately, painfully human? What makes you feel like yourself? It could be another person-- a partner, a family member, a friend. It could be an idea.

There's a pack of buddhists around Beacon Hills that use a mantra to keep their cool, a quote from the Buddha himself: " _Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth._ " Make of that what you will, but to me it always means that the truth is a constant and will always return, just like the sun and the moon. The fact that you are human is a steady, unchangeable truth. Nothing can change it, and you can always come back to that, no matter what.

If that doesn't work for you, as doubtful as this seems, your anchor could just be _you_. You can be your _own_ anchor, and not have to rely on anyone else. All it takes is a strong sense of self. You have to know who you are, what you're really made of. As a teenager, you might still be going through phases like changes of clothes, and you might not know who you are just yet-- and that's just fine. Even if you can't be your own safe harbor, someone else or something else can be. All you have to do is find it.

But you haven't seen anything until the full moon.


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two: _The Full Moon For Dummies_

One of the few consistencies between scary werewolf stories is the full moon.

According to Hollywood, once the full moon comes out, you will lose all control, all memory of your humanity, and just completely wolf out into this ginormous beast with too many teeth and anger management issues.

According to me, and all of the experience I've had with werewolves (and believe me I've had way too much experience), this is _not_ true.

All those big shot directors were right about the moon thing. As a werewolf, your power is directly connected to the moon. When it's wan, or waning, it'll be way easier for you to stay in control. But when it's full...that's when things get harder.

Fun Fact: when there's a lunar eclipse, and the sun blocks the moon completely, you have no power at all. You're effectively human for however long the eclipse lasts. (I'm sure you're cheering and running to your computer to Google the nearest lunar eclipse-- don't get your hopes up. It comes with its own kind of consequences.)

When the moon is full, you, as a fresh wolf, are going to have a way harder time staying in control, and the likelihood of you actually keeping that control is in the single digits. Until you're more experienced and have a firmer grip on your inner wolf, the best thing to do is...wait for it...BDSM.

HAHA! I got you for a minute didn't I? Not really, but sort of. You're gonna need some heavy chains, or some hand cuffs. (I'd check Amazon if I were you. Amazon has everything.)

The day of the full moon, you're going to be highly irritable, starving, horny, and you may have a _slight_ thirst for blood. A lot like any girl on her period.

(If you _are_ a girl, or someone who gets their period, then I have some bad news for you.)

Fun Fact: werewolves who get their period experience similar symptoms to those of the full moon. Congratulations, you effectively get your period twice a month. (I am so sorry.)

But anyway, during the day, try to avoid snapping on people or killing any small animals. Or letting your wolf characteristics show. If your vision changes color or you nails start elongating into claws, that is a signal for you to get the Hell outta dodge and go calm down.

Once you make it through the day (and you will, I promise) for God's sake, _don't make any plans for the night._ Find somewhere to hide, your basement, a cave in the woods if you have to (preferably somewhere you won't mind getting claw marks on everything). Somewhere far from people, where you won't be disturbed.

Before the sun goes down, go to that place. Lock yourself in, lock yourself up. If you have someone you can trust, get them to help you, to stop you from doing anything you might regret.

Once the moon comes up, you will inevitably transform. Don't freak out. All of these changes are natural (well, supernatural).

But just so you know, here's what will happen:

\- Your fingernails will elongate and turn into very strong, very sharp claws. Danger, keep out of reach of children.

\- Your teeth will also elongate and sharpen until you have a mouth full of fangs. Try not to bite your tongue.

\- If you're a guy you are gonna grow a set of manly werewolf side burns.

\- If you're a girl you will NOT grow a set of manly werewolf side burns.

\- If you're neither or both, I have no idea which will happen. Good luck with that.

\- Your face is gonna change shape. Your nose will flatten, your ears will get bigger and come to a point (a lot like elves' ears--you like Legolas?) and your brow will thicken and wrinkle.

\- Your eyes are gonna start glowing, probably yellow. (If they start glowing any _other_ color, definitely consult Chapter 3)

\- Because of your cool glowing eyes your vision will change. Yay! You can see in the dark! Boo, everything is in black in white! No color vision for you!

\- Now you can growl, bark, roar and howl. Don't go nuts okay? Some of us like sleep.

\- Oh, and that _slight_ bloodlust? That's gonna turn into a _major_ bloodlust.

Yeaaaah, about that. You're pretty much gonna wanna murder and or eat everything in a ten mile radius. Even if it's a cute little bunny. Even if it's your best friend.

And before you say I'm exaggerating, believe me, I know. My best friend Scott tried to kill me during his second full moon ( No hard feelings buddy). The danger is very real.

Your job, your _only_ job, during the full moon is to control that urge. Control it like your life depends on it (because other people's lives do). Focus on your anchor, on what makes you human. You can't turn back, but you can stop yourself. And that's all that matters.

As soon as the moon sets, and the sun rises, you'll turn back. (Probably minus your clothes. Bring a spare set or risk running home from wherever you were with your werewolf ass hanging out for the world to see.) Head home, hide the chains under your bed, shower, and go to sleep.

When your parents or whoever come in to wake you up for school, tell them you're sick. You'll look like Hell, so you can probably pull it off. Sleep the rest of the day. Eat a lot. Study for that test you missed. You'll be fine by the next day.

You won't be able to do this after every full moon; people do get suspicious. But for the first few times, I highly recommend it, at the very least to prevent you from drooling all over your desk or failing a test because you didn't sleep the night before.

With any luck, you might just manage not to maul your grandma.


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three: _Alpha, Beta, Omega (or Pokémon Go! but for Werewolves)_

So you know the Pokémon teams right? Valor, Instinct, and Mystic? Red, yellow, blue?

Remember how I told you your eyes will turn yellow when you transform?

That's not the only color they can turn. Your wolf eyes can also be red or blue as well as yellow. Wanna know why?

It's not really something as simple as your own eye color or where you're from or what your zodiac sign is or whatever. The hierarchy of the pack is what determines their color, because that color symbolizes your status in the pack.

The same way wolf packs have an internal food chain, telling them who gets to kick whose ass, so do werewolf packs.

Oh, yeah, werewolves tend to form packs. Did I forget to mention that? The bigger the better--but more on that in a minute.

There are three levels in a pack. Alpha, Beta, and Omega.

The Beta: That's you! Just your regular teenage werewolf. You're the middle man of the pack, and you make up the majority. But make no mistake, this isn't a democracy. You do what the Alpha says. No matter what. You pretty much don't have a choice. (And when I say that, I mean it completely literally. You won't just get a slap on the wrist with a ruler for disobeying the Alpha-- you physically _can not_ disobey them.)

The Omega: Oh does life suck for the Omega. Like the last letter of the alphabet, they're at the very bottom of the pecking order. Even Betas can kick the Omega's ass--and they often do, for the sheer pleasure of it. The Omega is last for everything; food, in line, to call shotgun, you name it. They have absolutely no standing in the pack. The Alpha and Betas mostly keep them around for entertainment, and as a semi-human punching bag. Someone to bully when things don't go according to plan. (Not every pack has an Omega, and not every Alpha makes a habit of turning a pack member into the Omega. I dunno, maybe some people just aren't complete jack asses.) Omegas are also sometimes known as lone wolves. Werewolves who had it so bad in their own pack they just up and left. Or whose pack was decimated, and they were the only survivor.

The Alpha: Leader of the pack. Red eyes, big teeth, and, depending on the individual, an even bigger attitude. An Alpha is much more powerful than a Beta or an Omega. They're bigger, stronger, meaner--they have powers a Beta or an Omega wouldn't. For instance, an Alpha is the only werewolf that can actually give the Bite, the thing that turns you into a werewolf. Any other werewolf will bite you and just leave a nasty scar, maybe some Tetanus. But that's it. (So, if you accidentally bite your little sister or your demonic chemistry teacher, they will not turn into a werewolf, never fear. Although they still might ask you some questions afterwards.)

An Alpha gains their power by taking it from a previous Alpha. No, the power exchange isn't peaceful, or even mutual. The only way to take an Alpha's power is to take their life. Only a werewolf can absorb that power, and only the werewolf who actually did the deed can wield it. It's a lot like some kind of screwed up initiation. You have to prove yourself to win the power, but in the worst way possible.

Fun Fact: There is a way for a werewolf to gain Alpha status without having to kill anyone. It's called a True Alpha. It's when a Beta (one who has never taken a life) rises to the status of Alpha through sheer force of will, without having to take the power from anyone. It is _extremely_ rare. Like, once every other blue moon kind of rare. Most people never see it. I've only ever seen it once. In Scott.

But I digress.

The Alpha draws power from others in their pack. The more baby Betas, the better. So often, an Alpha will try to turn a bunch of people at once, to start a new pack or reinforce an old one that lost a few members. They usually go for teenagers, who are young and resilient, but also naive and (let's be honest guys) kinda stupid, which makes them easy to control. That, more likely than not, is where you come in.

The Alpha who bit you is probably still out there, waiting for you to join them. Don't freak out! As awful as I've made pack life (and the Alpha) out to be, it's really not that bad.

Take it from me. I'm in a pack myself. No, I'm not a werewolf, but that doesn't matter. Ours is a little unorthodox. If you have a good pack, and a good Alpha, then being in a pack is amazing. It feels like family, like _home_. Your pack would die for you, and you for them. It's somewhere you belong. Where you really belong.

Not to mention, the same way having more members of a pack gives the Alpha power, simply being in a pack gives you as a Beta more power. You're stronger, faster, and smarter than you would be alone (And you have extra back up). Werewolves that don't go to their pack, or choose to live without one, are significantly weaker, and at much higher risk for...let's say incidents. Being a werewolf is, if you hadn't guessed, a pretty dangerous pastime.

That brings me to my next point. Or one of my previous ones. They kinda got mixed up. I think I might have skipped a dose of Adderall. Oops. Whatever, anyway, you'll notice I kind of got away from talking about eye color, and what it means. That's cause it's tricky. Really tricky.

At the most basic level it's something like this:

Red- Alpha

Yellow- Beta

Blue- Omega

But at the same time it _isn't_. Because yellow and blue, Beta and Omega, they're interchangeable. Because unlike the other colors, blue doesn't signify status. It signifies something else entirely.

When a werewolf kills someone, their eyes change. They turn blue. Clear, icy blue. There is no way to change them back. (Okay, granted if an Alpha kills someone they're eyes stay red, but if they were to ever lose their power and go back to being a Beta, their eyes would still be blue.) Killing someone, taking a life, it takes something out of you. Whoever you were before, you will never be the same.

Having blue eyes...marks you. As a murderer, as a wolf who can't keep control. As someone who made a terrible, terrible mistake.

You are dangerous. Inherently. You're not a monster, but you are dangerous, and you need to be aware of that. The last thing we need is more people getting hurt.

 _Please note, the Bite is not for everyone. The transformation comes with a ton of amazing perks, and it can save a life in an emergency, but it can also cause a death. For some people, the Bite just isn't compatible--instead of transforming them, it will kill them. Very painfully. You've been warned._


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four: _How to Avoid Being Made Into a Rug_

Okay so the title may be a _slight_ over-exaggeration. Werewolves don't actually have enough fur for anyone to make them into rugs- but if I'm honest with you, that doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who wouldn't try it.

Yeah, this may come as a bit of a shock, but not everyone feels warm and fuzzy about werewolves. (Not everyone knows about werewolves _period,_ but believe me, even if they did, their thoughts would be more along the lines of _AAAHHH_ than _AW LOOK AT THE BIG PUPPY!_ )

As long as there have been werewolves, or even stories and legends about werewolves, there have been people that are terrified of them. So terrified of them that they take up arms against them.

This isn't past tense only here. This is present tense. There were people out there who hunted werewolves, and there still _are_ people out there who hunt werewolves. There are people who hunt _you._

I'm not trying to scare you out of your pants here, but I have to emphasize that the danger hunters pose to werewolves, and to you specifically, is very _very_ real.

So it's critical that you know as much about them as possible.

Take one more deep breath. Let's start at the beginning.

Like I said before, as long as there have been werewolves, there have been people that hunt them. Or try to. For a long time, most of them had no idea what they were doing. They went off of legends and old wives tales, going out on the full moon and slaughtering whichever wolves came close to their villages. Most of them never saw a real werewolf, or if they did, they never knew.

Then, someone got wise. Specifically, one family got wise.

The drama started in France, as it usually does. In the city of Gevaudan, around 1764. People were getting attacked, and killed, by a mysterious beast roaming the countryside. The victims always had their throats torn out. The survivors could only describe the beast as something like a wolf, but a wolf much, much larger than any they had ever seen before. Most just called it a monster.

Once you start using the word _monster_ , people start paying attention. And once they do they get scared, out of their wits. As the beast took more and more lives (estimations put the number of deaths between 100-200) the rest of the country started to panic.

Now, the king of France at the time, Louis XV (Translation: Louis the Fifteenth. The royal family weren't very good with names, so they just kept recycling them) well, he couldn't have his populace running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Nothing would get done. So, he offered rewards; money, land, and titles, to whichever hunters could find and kill the Beast.

For three years, no such luck. People kept dying, and the king kept throwing money at the problem hoping it would go away. (Subtle hint: that never works).

But this is where the story gets just a little complicated.

According to history (and Wikipedia) there were actually two beasts terrorizing Gevaudan. The credit for killing them goes to Francois Antoine and Jean Chastel.

The first was good old Louis XV's lieutenant of the hunt, who killed one big bad wolf, stuffed it, and called it a day. He went back to Versailles for a pat on the back and a crap load of cash, and everyone thought the problem was solved; until a dozen more people were slaughtered in Gevaudan a few months later.

 _Well shit,_ everyone said. _There must be more than one beast!_

So the insanity started again, and continued for a few more months until finally, _finally,_ a local hunter (our number two guy) Jean Chastel killed the beast in a hunt organized by the Marquis d'Argent.

Honestly, I'm amazed that everything history has said on this topic was totally wrong.

According to me, history needs to get its act together, because these are the facts.

There weren't two beasts terrorizing Gevaudan.

It was a werewolf. A big bad very scary werewolf. The kind that blows down houses and sends the little piggies squealing.

It wasn't a man, or even two men, that finally killed the Beast. It was a woman.

Who was she? Legend remembers her only as the Maid of Gevaudan.

Her real name was Marie Jeanne Valet. She was a huntress from Gevaudan, well-liked and well known in her province, both for her talented marksmanship (markswomanship?) and her literal balls of steel. When her people started dying, being killed off by a so-called beast, Marie Jeanne wasn't having any of it. She heard the rumors, that it wasn't a normal wolf, big enough to tear off your head with one bite, savage enough to kill you without a second thought. She knew it was more likely than not a monstrosity - and this badass wasted literally no time organizing a hunt for the beast's head. (Honestly, what a legend.)

Marie Jeanne and twenty of her closest hunter buds ventured into the forest at dawn, hoping to creep up on the Beast while it slept. They searched all day with no luck, and ended up still searching as night fell.

They tread silently, each man holding his weapon in a death grip. Even by the light of the full moon, they needed torches to guide them, and every other man held one high above his head, the warm light flickering over new fallen snow. Marie Jeanne was in the lead, her crossbow at her side, an arrow nocked on the string, ready to fire.

Things didn't really go according to plan.

Just after midnight, the first torch went out. Doused in the freezing snow, along with the man that had been holding it.

That's when the screaming started. The bloodcurdling, terrified cries of men being torn apart. Marie Jeanne spun, trying to find a target, but after the first torch the rest had been quick to follow. In the sudden darkness, she couldn't see her own bow, but she shot anyway. After an eternity, the screaming stopped. She knew she was next, and she tried to run, but something came from behind her with a roar to claw her leg- forcing her bow from her hands as she scrambled to get away. She only made it a few steps before she turned to face her attacker with a dagger in hand. A mountain of shadow loomed in the trees, stalking towards her on two legs as smoke rolled from the body, frigid blue eyes blazing at her from almost ten feet in the air. Marie Jeanne looked death in the face, and gripped her dagger tighter.

The Beast leapt for her throat, but she had no time to react because someone else was already reacting for her, leaping in front of her as he threw strange powder at the monstrosity. The powder confused the Beast and forced it back, giving Marie Jeanne and her rescuer just enough time to escape to his Creepy CottageTM deep in the forest.

Our new player's name was Henri Argent. His name won't appear in any history books you might read, mostly because he was a total hermit. He lived in a Creepy Cottage in the middle of the woods so no one could ever find him. Or ever figure out that he had devoted his life to hunting werewolves.

(Can you imagine having that conversation with your mom? _No Mom I don't WANT to be a blacksmith I'm just going to live in the woods and hunt werewolves far away from you and your JUDGEMENT_ )

So. Henri and Marie Jeanne escape to his little Creepy Cottage where Henri starts to say "You know that wasn't a wolf right-" and Marie cuts him off by saying "No shit."

The rest is, as they say, history. Henri the odd hermit monster hunter teamed up with Marie Jeanne local badass to take down the Beast, and in the process taught her everything he knew about werewolves and how to kill them.

And he had to pull out all of his tricks too, because the Beast was probably one of the hardest hunts he or Marie Jeanne had ever had. For one, the Beast was on a whole new scale of Scary by werewolf standards. Hatred (and pure psychopathy) had turned him into a monstrosity unlike anything that had existed before. For another, the man behind the wolf was none other than Marie Jeanne's big brother, Sebastien Valet.

 _*IMPOSSIBLY LOUD RECORD SCRATCH*_

Yeah, you read that right. Marie Jeanne was hunting her own flesh and blood. But she didn't know that at first.

You see, our boy Sebastien was a soldier, and he had only just returned from the Americas, where two major things happened to impact his life. One, he fought in the French and Indian war, and two, he got turned into a werewolf.

Now the _how_ of that is not really as important as what came after, so I'll just give you a suuuuper brief overview:

Sebastien +

face-planting into a puddle +

that puddle being made by a werewolf paw print

= Sebastien the homicidal maniac werewolf

I'm sure you'd be avoiding all puddles if you weren't a werewolf already, but worry not, I'll explain how it all works….later. For now, back to France.

Sebastien comes back home to Gevaudan hopped up on werewolf anger-issues and almost immediately goes on a murderous rampage (the obvious choice, right?). For months he's extremely careful to keep his identity a total secret. Only one person is in the know, a war buddy who's so terrified of becoming one of the victims that he starts hiding the bodies for Sebastien.

But anybody who's tried to keep a secret knows it doesn't last.

Henri and Marie Jeanne knew the Beast had to be someone from Gevaudan, so they came up with a plan to out them. Taking a bottle of fine wine, they laced it with mistletoe, knowing that although harmless to humans, to a werewolf would be poison. One night, they brought their concoction to the local tavern and poured it into every person's glass, before calling for a toast in honor of the many victims of the Beast. Anyone who _didn't_ drink was disrespecting the dead. Not something you want to do in front of the whole village.

Marie Jeanne herself called for the toast (Henri stayed home, like the hermit he was) but she didn't get to see the results of her handiwork. Everyone in the bar drank, including Sebastien, but his buddy had his back. He crushed his glass in his hand, cutting himself and drawing Marie Jeanne outside, away from where her brother was having a werewolf fit in the corner.

When the door shut behind them, it was like they had entered a different world, far removed but also somehow at the center of everything that had been building in Gevaudan since Sebastien's return. The werewolf ally and the werewolf hunter faced each other in the frigid night, the ally's blood staining the fresh snow. Marie Jeanne reached for him, taking him over to the well to wash his wound. That's when he started talking. And talking. It was like he couldn't stop. He told her everything. Not only how he had been covering for the Beast, not only where he had hidden the bodies, but who the Beast really was.

Marie Jeanne was understandably horrified, and at first she didn't believe the accomplice… until she confronted her brother about it the next night. Sebastien himself confirmed her worst fears with a fanged grin and a threat: stay out of the way, or become the next victim. Looking into his eyes, Marie Jeanne knew that her brother was gone. His _humanity_ was gone. The Beast wouldn't stop until Sebastien Valet was dead. And if Marie Jeanne had to be the one to kill him, then so fucking be it.

The hunt began in earnest then, but it wasn't until the winter of 1767, three years later, that brother and sister had their final showdown.

Picture this: Marie Jeanne running for her life from the Beast in broad daylight, her skirts covered in blood and snow. She's weaponless, breathless, and she's only a few feet ahead of her brother's maw. It's not long before he has her cornered. Or at least he thinks he does. Marie Jeanne is no one's fool, and she has one more trick up her sleeve. Or under the snow, as it were.

Sebastien shifts from Beast to human as he stalks toward his sister, taunting her with her failure and his triumph. Reveling in the fact that he will be remembered forever. In a moment he's so close to her she can smell the rotten blood on his breath. She can see the whites of his eyes. He's ready to tear her throat out, and that's when she strikes, snatching a steel-tipped pike from where she had planted it beneath the new fallen snow, and forcing it through Sebastien's chest. Standing there, impaled, her brother has the audacity to laugh at her attempt. He thinks he will heal. He thinks he's unkillable. He forgot how smart his sister was.

The pike was no normal weapon. Nothing that can kill a werewolf could ever be just a regular weapon. The staff was mountain ash, the tip itself pure steel, forged in a mixture of wolfsbane and Marie Jeanne's own blood under the light of a full moon.

It was when his blood began to flow black that Sebastien realized he was done for, but even in death he managed to be smug. He knew that the blood from his killing would stain the ledger of history for centuries to come. Everyone would know the terrifying legend of La Bête du Gévaudan. Everyone would remember his name. Marie Jeanne couldn't kill him, because in history he would be immortalized.

But nobody knew Sebastien better than Marie Jeanne. She knew what he wanted. She could see the triumph of it in his eyes - but she would never let him claim it.

As her big brother fell to his knees in the snow, coughing up his life, she leaned down to hiss in his ear: History might remember you, Sebastien... _but only as a beast._

Marie Jeanne spent the rest of her life striking her brother's name from every written record, burning his military service, his birth certificate, even his letters to her, in a ritual known as _Damnatio Memoriae_ (Latin for "Condemnation from memory"). It was a Roman form of dishonor and punishment, which effectively erased the very existence of a person through the destruction of records and property. She completely obliterated him from history, and made sure no one would remember him. Ever.

Well she didn't just do that. She also married our weird hermit werewolf hunter ('cause shared trauma and romantic love, they just go hand in hand don't they?) and took his name, Argent.

Whew, that was a long story.

Now I know what you're thinking. Why should I believe _you_ Stiles? Wikipedia is infallible. _Infallible._ It's _never_ wrong.

Yeah well, if Wikipedia was never wrong, you'd be allowed to cite it now wouldn't you?

You can take my words to the bank, on this at least. I got all of it directly from the source: Marie Jeanne's great-great-great-great-however-many-more-greats-grandson.

That's right, Marie Jeanne and Henri didn't just get their happily ever after. They also founded one of the largest, longest lasting and most dangerous werewolf hunting families in history. The Argents.

Why do we think silver kills werewolves? ('Cause newsflash it actually doesn't it has no effect at all.)

 _Argent_ is French for _silver._

Silver isn't really something you need to be worried about. But the Argents?

They're every wolf's worst nightmare.


End file.
